


Capes and Cowls #4

by Vigs



Series: One Multiverse Over [8]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: (Not involving the same characters), Bisexual Female Character, Canon Disabled Character, Contains both consensual sex and creepy stalking, F/M, Multiplicity/Plurality, Original DC reboot, Polyamory, See summary and notes for details
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-09-17 02:29:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigs/pseuds/Vigs
Summary: A mass breakout at Arkham leaves the Bat-team shorthanded enough that Batman goes to the recently-paroled Catwoman for assistance.This installment contains both explicit, consensual Batman/Catwoman sex AND Jervis Tetch stalking a 17-year-old. There will be chapter-by-chapter content notes, plus a summary of the story posted in Supplemental Materials if you'd like to skip this installment entirely without missing any major plot points.





	1. Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> So, as you probably noticed from the tags and summary, this installment is a bit of a change from what's come before it. Especially explicit or triggery chapters will be marked as such, and have summaries in the end notes so you can skip the chapter if you want to. Once I've posted the whole installment, I'll put a full summary in Supplemental Materials so that anyone who wants to keep up with the ongoing story can do so while skipping this one.
> 
> I think the Batman/Catwoman relationship is fun, important, and inherently extremely sexual; I don't want to shy away from that. I also think that Jervis Tetch doesn't always get as much blame for being _a huge fucking creep_ as he deserves, so I'm putting a spotlight on that. I'm doing both at the same time to try to create a contrast between the two, because they're so deeply different.
> 
> No specific CNs for this chapter, aside from a brief mention that prison exists and sucks.

Eddleton Federal Women's Penitentiary was a medium-security facility an hour outside Gotham City. Bruce made the drive himself in a relatively low-key Mercedes convertible, listening to copies of the Joker’s latest therapy session recordings that he’d “borrowed” from Arkham Asylum (officially the New York State Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, but everyone still used its old name) along the way. It was unlikely to turn up any leads, but Joker had escaped the day before; Batman couldn’t afford to leave any stone unturned. He could’ve done something more productive if he’d had Alfred drive, but this errand was a little too personal for even Alfred’s unobtrusive company. Once he’d parked, he switched on the radio and put the unmarked CD into the glove compartment before turning off the car.

Selina was waiting for him just inside the building, still wearing her prison orange. He knew she hadn’t been a natural blonde, but it was still strange to see her undyed hair, short and brown and unremarkable. She was thinner than she had been when she went in, but her musculature hadn’t deteriorated. Her smile was too beautiful to look at for long, leaving afterimages like the sun.

“I brought you some clothes,” Bruce said, handing her a bundle he’d picked up from her girlfriend, Maven. Thankfully, Maven had opted to get Selina’s apartment back in order rather than come with him to get her. Bruce never knew quite how to interact with the quiet, sort of mousy woman.

“You’re the best, Bruce,” Selina said, taking the bundle. Her fingers were almost reverent on the soft cloth. The rough prison clothes must have been driving her crazy. “You didn’t grab any makeup, did you?”

“Uh, no, sorry. Didn’t think of it.” Actually, he  _ had _ thought of it—Selina always wore makeup, even when she was breaking and entering—but Maven hadn’t given him any, and asking her for some had seemed like it might be overstepping.

“I’ll live,” she said, masking disappointment, and headed into the visitors’ restroom to change.

When she came out, he moved to open the door outside for her, but she stopped him.

“I know you’re a gentleman, but I’d like to let myself out, thanks. I’ve been waiting to open this door for twenty months.” Selina stepped outside and stretched in the sunlight, looking more like a cat in a maroon blouse and black slacks than she ever had in her costume.

“Sorry you have to be cooped up in a car for an hour,” Bruce said, trying not to too obviously admire the sunlight in her hair and the way her shirt draped as she stretched. Batman was the one who’d slept with her; Bruce was just a friend. The fact that both sides of him were attracted to her—the fact that he remembered every minute of it—was less important than keeping her from realizing that her buddy Bruce was still attracted to her. He dropped his eyes and ended up looking at her ankle monitor instead.

“I’ll forgive you if you put the top down and we stop at a Dairy Queen,” she said, finishing her stretch and following him to his car. “You know, I don’t even eat soft serve very often, but it occurred to me two months ago that I wanted some and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.”

“I think I can manage that,” Bruce said, opening the car door for her. “And then back to your apartment?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said while he put the top down. “You’ve seen it recently, right? Did the subletter absolutely ruin it?”

“It looked fine to me.” It had looked wrong, organized completely differently than it had been when she was in residence, but he couldn’t say that. Bruce had only been there a handful of times; Batman was the one who’d visited regularly. “And Maven’s there, fixing it up.”

“Wonderful. So, fill me in! What gossip have I missed?” she asked. She sounded like she didn’t particularly care, but was humoring Bruce by asking about his interests. Just part of the price he paid for his dual identity, he supposed. As he pulled the car out and got them on the road, Bruce began to recount the latest goings-on in the high society circles he and Selina had moved in before her incarceration, including a brief description of his most recent short-lived and amicably-ended fling with an actress.

“Why haven’t you and I ever slept together?” Selina asked suddenly. There was a predatory note in her voice.

“Um.” He’d wanted to when they first met out of costume, before he figured out that she was the catburglar who kept giving him the slip, but she’d turned him down. And then one night Catwoman brought Batman back to her apartment and took off her mask and it ceased to be an option, because having her recognize his penis would be the most embarrassing possible way for someone to figure out his secret identity. “Because we’re friends. I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

“You’re on good terms with practically everyone you’ve slept with,” Selina said, waving aside his objection. “Normally you’d be a little too puppy-dog for me, but come on, I just spent 20 months in a women’s prison. I need some variety in my sex life. Throw me a bone here.”

“Well, as flattered as I am to be the nearest available man, I’m going to take a pass,” Bruce said.

“Am I too intimidating now that you know I’m Catwoman?” she asked. She sounded pleased by the idea.

“No, but now that you mention it, I am a little worried about getting my head bashed in by Batman,” he said. “Aren’t you two a thing?”

“Not an  _ exclusive _ thing. Or at least, we never talked about it, and he never bothered Maven.” She sighed. “I’m not sure we are anymore, anyway. He never even wrote to me while I was in prison.”

Bruce felt a pang of guilt. He’d written to her regularly, and even visited when he had the time, but writing letters wasn’t really something Batman did.

“I’m sure you’re still... I mean, he fights crime, right?” Bruce said. “Wouldn’t he be glad you turned yourself in and served your sentence?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, clearly trying her best to sound airily unconcerned. “I’m just a civilian now. Not exciting or forbidden or anything. He’s probably lost interest. If he’s even still alive.”

“I think he’s still active,” Bruce said cautiously. “The Batsignal’s still been going up, and everything.”

“That’s good,” she said, probably with more feeling than she’d intended. “You haven’t heard of any sexy femme fatales muscling in on my territory, have you?”

“Your  _ old _ territory, you mean?” Bruce said. “Since you’re going straight now?”

“Nah, I’m staying bi,” she said archly.

“You know what I meant, Selina.”

“Yeah, I know.” She sighed. “I’m just worrying about getting through parole right now, you know? The rest of it… I know it’s not a side of me you ever saw, but it was really important to me. It’s like how the idea of monogamy makes me go ‘What, you mean I can  _ never _ sleep with anyone new? Ever?’ I can deal with the thought of not doing any burglary right now, but  _ never _ ? Spend the rest of my life as a boring, law-abiding citizen? I can’t say it really appeals.”

“I don’t think polyamory and being a costumed criminal are really comparable,” Bruce said. “Nobody’s going to write  _ The Ethical Catburglar _ any time soon. And I never thought you were boring, even before I found out you were Catwoman.” It was an uncomfortable lie. They’d been friendly acquaintances, and she’d been someone who wasn’t completely dull to talk to at fundraisers and galas and so on, but aside from appreciating her appearance he hadn’t really thought much about her.

“That’s because you’re boring,” she said fondly. “Sweet, but boring.”

“Speaking of sweet but boring, here’s a Dairy Queen.”

The drive was silent for a while as Selina ate her ice cream. There wasn’t much scenery worth looking at on the highway. Bruce looked at it anyway. Sitting next to Selina while she ate an ice cream cone could easily lead to distracted driving, especially with the pleased noises she was making. Batman had made her make some of those same noises. It had not been with ice cream.

“Thanks,” she said when it was gone.

“For the ice cream? No problem.”

“For that, and for everything. For giving me a ride and sticking by me even though I’m a criminal. You and Maven are the only ones who even wrote to me, you know that? Out of all those ‘friends’ I used to have.” She sighed. She’d always tried to put on a brave face, pretend that prison wasn’t getting to her at all, but the conditions there and the loss of her friends had definitely affected her. “And you’re not actually boring.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce said.

“You want to have dinner with me and Maven, when we get back?” she asked. He could tell she was making the offer out of politeness more than from an actual desire to have him join them, which was good, because he didn’t particularly want to.

“Oh, no, I don’t want to get in the way of you two catching up,” he said.

“Yeah, it’ll be nice having some time for it to be just the two of us,” she agreed with a small but genuine smile. “Not a lot of privacy in prison, you know. I really can’t recommend it at all.”

“What, prison?” Bruce laughed. “Darn, I guess I ought to stop doing all those crimes, then.”

Selina laughed.

“Honestly, Bruce, have you ever even committed a white-collar crime?” she teased. “You’re the least criminal person I know.”

“I’m speeding  _ right now _ ,” he protested. “Look at the speedometer!”

“Five miles per hour doesn’t count.”

“You only think that because you’re a hardened criminal,” he retorted.

God, her smile was beautiful.


	2. Robin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: Mentions of Serious Concerns involving Mad Hatter and Poison Ivy, and their creepy abilities.

“Homework done?” B asked.

“ _Yes_ , B, jeez,” Rick said. He didn’t usually patrol on school nights, but Joker had gotten out of Arkham recently, which meant that one of them would go on a normal patrol and the other would check out every building that had ever housed any business tangentially related to clowns or comedy. (It _probably_ wouldn’t turn anything up, but one time they’d found the Joker that way just two days after he’d escaped and it had been hilarious. Joker was so angry.)

Anyway, when Joker was out, Rick did his homework at lunch and right after school.

“Fine.” B switched on comms. “Oracle, Robin will be taking patrol pattern 3 while I look for leads on the Joker.”

“Got it,” Babs said.

Rick revved his motorcycle’s engine, grinning. It was considerably quieter than a normal motorcycle, of course—didn’t want anyone to hear him coming from _too_ far away—but it was still extremely satisfying. He followed the Batmobile out onto the streets.

As a bonus, the relative quiet meant that he could actually hear his comms even while he was driving.

“So, B, you didn’t tell me how it went,” he said.

“Is this going to be a mission-relevant conversation?” Batman asked.

“Selina’s mission-relevant.” He grinned to himself. “What’s the recidivism rate for femme fatale catburglars?”

“Ooh, were all those rumors actually true?” Babs asked.

“Well, I can’t answer that for sure if I don’t know what rumors you heard,” Rick said. “But yeah, they were totally true.”

“R, O, focus please,” B said.

“Hey, if they’d just let the Penguin out or something, we’d be briefing Oracle on him,” Rick said reasonably. “Just in case he decided to reoffend.”

“You don’t need to worry about Catwoman—” B started.

“Oh, so you _do_ think she’s still going to be Catwoman?” Rick asked.

“It’s who she is. Doesn’t mean she’ll reoffend. Now drop it,” B ordered.

“Okay, okay,” Rick said. “But one of us has to give Oracle a full briefing on her sometime, right?”

“The files she already has access to should be sufficient,” B said.

“I don’t know, they were definitely vague at a few points,” Babs said.

“Whoops, think I see some gang activity,” Rick reported, parking his motorcycle and taking to the roofs before they could spot him. Teasing B was fun, but doing his job was actually more important. “We’ll have to continue this later.”

They didn’t end up actually continuing it until lunch at school the next day.

“Dad told me about her turning herself in,” Babs said. “Apparently she showed up in his office—must have scaled the building to get there without anyone seeing—costume on, mask off, lying on his desk, I quote, ‘like it was a damn piano,’ with a big bag of stolen loot. Definitely not _everything_ she stole, but a bunch of it. Lots of it was from crimes they hadn’t connected to her; I guess she wanted to brag.”

“Yeah, that sounds like her,” Rick said. He paused, and then carefully emphasized, “She and _Bruce_ are friends.”

“I thought they were more than—oh, gotcha,” Babs said. “But she doesn’t _know_ , right?”

“Nope, no clue. B’s… weird about women, sometimes. There’s this other—” he noticed someone else approaching their table and cut himself off. “Hey Allison, what’s up? I like the hair.”

Rick and Allison Whittaker (of the Gotham Whittakers) had dated for a while back when he was a sophomore and she was a junior, and were still friends. She’d always been really creative with her makeup and her nails, trying to inject a little personality into their bland school uniforms, and until recently—yesterday, he was pretty sure—her hair had been a shade of red that was _just_ barely natural enough to meet the Vree’s dress code. Now it was blonde.

“Thanks, I hate it,” she said gloomily. “Barbara, right? Mind if I join you?”

Rick looked to Babs, who shrugged.

“Sure,” he said. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I didn’t want it blonde. I don’t know, all of a sudden Sanders decided my hair didn’t meet dress code standards after all.” Mr. Sanders was the vice principal. He was usually pretty easygoing. “I wanted to dye it black—can’t argue with that, right? Lots of people have black hair—but mom made me get blonde.”

“That sucks,” Rick said. “It’s _your_ hair.”

“Right? I don’t know, she and dad have both been weird lately,” she said. “They actually moved my curfew _earlier_. I didn’t even do anything! That they know of.”

Rick laughed, but Allison just smiled a little. She actually didn’t look so good, now that he looked closer. Her makeup couldn’t quite cover up how tired she looked, pale and with bags under her eyes.

“Maybe they’re worried about the Scarecrow attacks,” Babs suggested.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Allison said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “None of us have gotten gassed or anything, and it’s not like it’s _that_ dangerous. Not for Gotham.”

None of them had gotten gassed, so it couldn’t be lingering magical paranoia (which was back on the rise again.)

“And it’s not just that and the hair. They’ve been _weird_. They started calling me Alice, which you know I hate, and they keep randomly making noise in the kitchen in the middle of the night? Like, banging pots and pans together and stuff, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in like two weeks.”

“That’s _really_ weird.” The Whittakers had seemed pretty chill when Rick met them. “So did you want help sneaking out or something?”

“No, they’d probably catch me. They keep checking in on me, too, and waking me up half the time. It’s bizarre. And they won’t shut up about how I’m turning eighteen soon. I think they’re more excited about it than I am.” She sighed. “I just wanted to sit with you because Tracy started calling me Alice too, and now like half my friends are doing it because she is, and nobody’s taking me seriously when I say I hate it.”

Babs snorted. Rick knew that Tracy was one of the girls who tended to talk to her too-sweetly and slowly, like she was a little kid or something. Allison had never done that, though.

“Well, I promise not to call you anything but Allison,” Rick said.

“That’s a relief,” she said. “I was starting to think I was going crazy or something.”

Mr. Sanders, who wasn’t usually in the lunchroom at all, walked up to the table.

“Alice, could I see you in my office for a moment?” he asked.

“I really prefer Allison,” she said tiredly, but she got up to go with him.

“Right, of course,” he said. The two walked away.

“That was super weird, right?” Babs asked when they’d left the room. “I know my social skills aren’t exactly top-tier, but that all seemed super weird.”

“It definitely was,” Rick said. In a lower voice, he added, “I’m going to get B to make sure Tetch is still in Arkham.”

“You mean the Mad—” Babs’ eyes got wide. “Oh, _shit_.”

“Yeah,” Rick agreed. “He was still there last I heard, though.”

“Like that ever lasts at Arkham,” Babs muttered.

He and Babs didn’t have any classes together after lunch, and she wasn’t going to come over after school that day, mostly so she’d be in place to coordinate patrol from her rig at home. (The Batcomputer would have been better for it, of course, but Rick was pretty sure Commissioner Gordon wouldn’t have okayed Babs having a sleepover at her boyfriend’s place.)

He grinned when the thought occurred to him. He and Babs were dating! Awesome. Not that they’d actually gone on any dates, but they had _definitely_ made out on the couch a bunch, which had been especially awesome.

His good mood lasted until he got in the car Alfred was driving. Usually being around Alfred improved his mood, but today his normally impassive face was distinctly worried—not that anyone but Rick or B would have been able to spot it.

“I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news, Master Rick,” he said as they pulled away from the curb.

“Is B okay?” Rick asked immediately. What could have happened to him during the _day_?

“Master Bruce was fine when we last spoke, but he has already gone out, and you are _not_ to join him.”

“What? Why?” Was there some kind of epidemic of parents (er… legal guardians?) acting weird?

“As of this morning, Poison Ivy is at large.”

“Oh, crap.” B always benched him when Ivy was out. Which was definitely annoying, but also preferable to having to see B under the effect of her creepy sex pollen, let alone getting hit by it himself. They had an antidote, but it didn’t last very long; you couldn’t just take it at the beginning of patrol and be good to go the whole evening, and too much of it was hell on the reflexes, which also wasn’t great for patrol.

“Is anybody else out?” Rick asked.

“I believe Dr. Quinzel accompanied the Joker when he broke out,” Alfred said. “But no one else, to my knowledge.”

So maybe all the stuff going on with Allison was just… normal weird, not mad science weird? Rick didn’t really have a good baseline for that kind of thing. Everyone insisting on calling her Alice, though…

Maybe he’d go to Arkham himself, just to double-check that Hatter was actually there. B wouldn’t keep him from doing that, right? It was the one place they knew Ivy _wasn’t_ , after all.


	3. Batman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: violence involving animals, an outside perspective on an abusive relationship. See end notes for details.

With Joker and Ivy both at large, Batman had cleared Bruce’s calendar and spent the day in disguise as Matches Malone instead. Either or both of the criminals could be looking to hire (or hypnotize) some muscle; one of Malone’s contacts could have been approached.

He’d been considerably luckier than he’d expected, which was why he was currently sitting in the passenger’s seat of a bright purple car being driven by a psychiatrist in a harlequin costume. (He’d tried to use the Joker’s preference for bright purple cars to track him down before—it wasn’t exactly a common color in Gotham, especially since people knew that was what the Joker drove—but apparently he’d just turn up at a different chop shop every time with a stolen car and demand a paint job and a license plate change. People generally didn’t refuse the Joker.)

“He don’t really kill guys who’re workin’ for him, right?” Batman asked. “That’s just a rumor, yeah?”

“Oh, definitely,” Harley assured him. “I mean, sometimes he hits ‘em with the gas, but that just puts ya in a coma. They all wake up eventually.”

She sounded sincere. She may have actually been unaware that the Joker did, in fact, make a habit of shooting his own henchmen.

“Cash up front, yeah?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, smiling brilliantly at him. “Mistah J’s generous like that, cause he knows that everybody knows not to go back on a deal with him.” That was definitely an intentional threat.

“Makes sense,” Batman said, affecting the subdued air of someone who was just now realizing that he was in considerably over his head.

The hideout this time appeared to be in an antique store, which seemed surprisingly off-brand for the Joker until Batman realized that nearly every shelf was full of unsettling porcelain dolls, many of them in clown or harlequin costumes. His shudder was only mostly fake.

“I don’t like the dolls either,” Harley confided in him, “But the Bat’s started staking out all the old comedy clubs and things, so we’ve had to get creative. Hi, babies, hi!”

This last was directed not at him but at two hyenas who launched themselves at her enthusiastically. Batman looked around while she was distracted. He and Harley were the only ones there, but there was a door to another interior room, which most likely contained the Joker. Possibly other henchmen as well, but if his luck held, he might only be facing Joker, Harley, and the hyenas. The only other potential exit was a window, but it had been thoroughly boarded over.

It was possible that he’d be able to bring them in without compromising the Matches identity, but it would be tricky.

“Harley, keep it down out there!” came the Joker’s distinctive yell from the closed door. “I’m  _ scheming _ .”

“Sorry, Mistah J!” she called, then whispered, “Shush, babies, shush. Mommy loves you too.” The combination of fear and love in her voice when she addressed the Joker always made Batman clench his teeth. All those stays at Arkham and no one had been able to convince this extremely intelligent woman that relationship was toxic?

“That was him, right?” Batman asked, again affecting fear. “The Joker.”

“Yep, that’s my Puddin’!” Harley said happily—but definitely quietly, for her. “Always gotta have his own dressin’ room, you know.”

Which implied that there wasn’t anyone else in there with him. This was starting to seem  _ too _ lucky. Had the Matches identity already been compromised? Could this be a trap? If so, why were they hesitating to spring it? Possibly because they thought it was funny.

“Everything’s a little rushed right now, ‘cause we weren’t actually plannin’ on escapin’ yet,” Harley confided, getting back to her feet. She didn’t  _ sound _ like she was hiding anything from him, and she wasn’t particularly skilled at hiding her feelings. “But when somebody opens the door an’ just  _ lets _ ya out, you go for it, ya know?”

He had never been certain exactly how much of her accent was an affectation. Certainly she  _ could _ speak with a more standard American accent, but she seemed to revel in every dropped “g.” She’d probably worked hard to make her speaking style match what people expected from educated professionals, in her previous life. Dropping it must have been a relief.

“Somebody just letcha out?” he asked.

“Yup!” Harley said cheerfully. “We didn’t pay ‘em or threaten ‘em or anythin’. I think somebody else is tryin’ to use us to distract the B-A-T, ya know. But when we look at a gift horse, we make lemonade!” She lowered her voice when she spelled “bat,” presumably to keep the Joker from hearing.

“Huh?”

“What?” she asked, apparently unaware that she’d said anything nonsensical. “Lemonade’s good.”

“I’m more of a beer guy.” Matches had gotten a lot of good information over a round of cheap beer.

“Beer’s gross,” Harley said, making a face. “People only drink it so other people don’t realize they think it’s gross. It’s all pretend.  _ Good _ booze is pretty colors an’ has an umbrella in it.” Projecting choices she’d resented having had to make in her previous life on the rest of the world—very Harley.

“If you say so, ma’am.” If the room had been lit by a single source, he could have taken it, her, and the hyenas out in short order, possibly without her realizing Matches was the one doing it. Unfortunately, there were multiple unmatched lamps, presumably appropriated from the antique store out front. He didn’t see a circuit breaker.

“Oh, just call me Harley,” she said. “Everyone does. Don’t just call  _ him _ Joker, though. ‘Mr. Joker sir’ is usually good.” It was kind of her to give him the advice. She was frequently kind. It didn’t stop her from killing people.

“Got it.” If he took Harley down before Joker left his “dressing room,” would she be able to meaningfully ID him? Probably. She was considerably more intelligent than she acted.

The door flew open, revealing the Joker in full costume.

“Ta-da!” he announced, and Harley clapped. Batman joined her after a second.

Joker narrowed his eyes at him.

“You found one already, Harl?” he asked. “New in town?”

The Joker’s voice was hard to read. He was a consummate showman, skilled at displaying only the emotions he wanted his audience to read. It took a great deal of pressure to even crack that façade.

“Uh, no sir, Mr. Joker,” Batman said. He’d had plenty of opportunities to make a close-up study of the way people acted when they were doing their best not to appear terrified, and was confident that he was mimicking it well.

“Hm.” The Joker began to circle him. “Worked for anyone I’d know?”

“I’m more what you might call freelance, Mr. Joker, sir,” he said. “Done a few jobs for Mr. Maroni, a few for Mr. Falcone—” (both true, back when he was first establishing this identity) “—a few for Mr. Cobblepot—” (false, but no one who worked for him ever called him “Penguin”) “—almost joined the Two-Ton Gang, but the coin said no—” (false, but a common occurrence) “—and plenty for, y’know, guys what had money but didn’t have names. I don’t ask questions.”

“I see. An impressive resume, Mr…?” Joker stopped in front of him.

“Malone, sir. Most folks call me Matches.”

“Well!” The Joker clapped a hand companionably on his shoulder. It was difficult to flinch just the right amount. “Since the real Rocko and Jocko are currently in prison and I don’t feel like breaking them out just now, I’ll be calling you Rocko.”

Rocko and Jocko’s real names were Richard and Lawrence. When the Joker gave you a name, you didn’t argue.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Joker,” he said.

“Good answer, Rocko,” the Joker said, giving his shoulder a friendly shake before letting him go. “I think we’ll get along just fine. Harley, any luck on your other little errand?”

“Bad news, boss,” she said. “Turns out ol’ Hatty gets his clothes same place you do.”

“My own tailor, working with my sworn enemy!” Joker lamented.

“When didja swear that?” Harley asked. “I thought he was the one who got those docs to let us out.”

Well, that hardly boded well for the situation at Arkham. Batman would have to pay them a visit once he’d dealt with the current situation.

“When he tried to  _ use _ me as a distraction, obviously. Keep up,” the Joker snapped. “No one uses the Joker.”

“Well, good,” Harley said with feeling. “He’s a real creep-o.”

“If I can’t take revenge by depriving him of his absurd attempts at  _ couture _ , I’ll have to find another way,” the Joker said, pacing. “What does he like? Hats, absurd clothing, children’s literature…”

“Blonde hair,” Harley said, shuddering. “He kept tryin’ to touch mine, back at Arkham. I had to ask the docs not to have us both in the rec room at the same time.”

“What! He laid a hand on my girl?” He put a solicitous arm around Harley. “Why didn’t you tell me, Poo?”

“I did tell ya, Puddin’,” Harley said. Her adoring gaze was an uncomfortable contrast to her words. “You said it was funny.”

“Well, that was before he was my sworn enemy!” the Joker said, releasing her to return to his pacing. “Perhaps some sort of hair dye bomb… We could just steal every copy of those asinine books in Gotham, but what would we do with them?”

“Confetti?” Harley suggested.

“What do you think, Rocko?” the Joker asked, suddenly rounding on Batman. “Hair dye bomb? Book confetti?”

“Could just find out what he’s planning an’ fuck with that,” Batman suggested. “Or do the book confetti thing.”

“I suppose I could swoop in to the rescue of whatever poor girl he’s fixated on this time,” the Joker mused. “What would be better, rescuing her or killing her?”

“Definitely killin’,” Harley said. “Ya don’ need some girl like he goes after around, Puddin’.”

Interesting. Harley wasn’t usually the more bloodthirsty of the two. Was she worried about being replaced? A possible wedge to drive between them? Not that he wanted to put some other woman in the Joker’s path.

“No—I’ll make  _ him _ kill her!” the Joker declared. “Arsenic in the tea, cyanide in the scones—or maybe a short circuit in one of his chips, so he fries her brain. Ha! Now  _ that _ would be funny. Rocko, you wouldn’t happen to be an electrical engineer, would you?”

“Uh, no, Mr. Joker, sir,” Batman said.

“Ah well, I suppose that would’ve been a little  _ too  _ convenient,” the Joker said. “Speaking of which—Harley, go get the prop out of my dressing room. I think we should make sure Rocko’s ready for my brand of prop comedy.”

“The prop?” Harley seemed confused, but brightened after a moment. “Oh yeah, the prop! Comin’ right up, Mistah J!”

The "prop" was an old man—likely the proprietor of the antique shop—gagged and tied to a rolling office chair. As Harley rolled him out, the Joker handed Batman a gun.

“Kill him, Rocko,” the Joker ordered.

“Ah… I’m more of a theft sorta guy…” he hedged. The old man looked at him pleadingly.

“Rocko, Rocko, Rocko,” the Joker tutted. “You are what I say you are. And right now, you’re a comedian! It’s just like smashing a watermelon. The funny part is the mess!”

“Won’t someone hear the shot?” Batman asked. “Don’t want to draw attention, yeah?”

“Rocko, old bean, this is Gotham! People will close the blinds and hope someone else takes care of it,” the Joker assured him. It was depressingly true. Even after all the work he and Jim had put into cleaning out the police force, actually calling the GCPD for help wasn’t an idea that would occur to most people, when it used to nearly always make the situation worse. “Leave the thinking to me. All you need to do is point and pull the trigger!”

“Miss Quinn said somethin’ about payment in advance?” he tried.

With much aplomb, the Joker pulled a single dollar bill out of his sleeve and tucked it into Batman’s pocket.

“Kill. Him.” His smile was glittering, his voice laden with menace. Harley had snuck around behind Batman with her oversized mallet. Another excuse would not go over well.

Batman pistol-whipped the Joker, then swung around to avoid a hammer blow from Harley. A sweep of the leg and she was on the ground.

“Get ‘im, babies!” Harley yelled, and the hyenas jumped towards Batman—who was currently minimally armored and barely geared. He grimaced. Desperate times.

He grabbed the dazed Joker and held the gun to his head.

“Call ‘em off,” he ordered Harley, still in Matches’ voice. “Now.”

The Joker elbowed him in the kidney. Fortunately, his torso was armored; unfortunately, Harley had made no move to call of the hyenas and was retrieving her hammer.

“You didn’t even pull the trigger!” the Joker said, sounding aggrieved. “I wanted to see the look on your face when the ‘BANG’ sign came out.”

Damn. He should have noticed that the gun was too light to hold real ammunition; a downside to the fact that he didn’t often hold a gun. A canny ploy on the Joker's part; he could repeat the "test" of making people shoot the old man with every new recruit. Batman threw the gun into one of the hyenas’ mouths and punched the Joker in the stomach, winding him.

“Jeez,” the Joker wheezed, “where did the cops find a snitch who fights like… now, hold on.” He closed one eye and raised his hand, clearly covering the top part of Batman’s face from his perspective.

Batman wasn’t too worried; the disguise putty firmly affixed to his jaw should keep it from being recognizable as either Batman’s or Bruce Wayne’s.

“I ain’t a snitch,” he said. “I just ain’t a guy who’ll ice some old bastard for a buck, got it?”

“Are you sure you’re not new in town, Rocko?” the Joker asked, putting his hand down. “That’s a pretty Metropolis attitude for a Gotham boy.”

Batman dodged a blow from Harley that could have crushed his unprotected skull. Instead, she overbalanced and fell over. Her weapon of choice was not particularly effective.

The hyenas, on the other hand, posed a real threat. Normally he could catch their bites on his gauntlets. With that option unavailable, he ducked when they leapt, sending one flying over his head to crash on the ground in a daze, but catching the other’s bite on his shoulder.

He had minimal armor on his shoulder—probably enough to turn a knife blade. Hyenas bit with over 1,000 psi of force. The animal bit through his shoulder armor like it was tinfoil.

Holding onto the hyena’s head so that it couldn’t rip a chunk out of him, he swung around, hitting the Joker in the stomach with the animal’s back legs.

The hyena snarled around a mouthful of shoulder, its front paws snagged in his shirt and thankfully not penetrating the body armor beneath, and held on. It was extremely painful.

Harley was getting herself disentangled and was about to stand up. Batman punched her in the side of the head with enough force to daze her, then refocused on the Joker. A hyena being swung around by the head was not a precision weapon; the wounds he left could have been life-threatening, or they could have been next to nothing.

Judging by the amount of blood leaking through the Joker’s purple suit, he wouldn’t be getting up or passing on for at least a few minutes, leaving Batman free to address his hyena problem. Carefully, he found the carotid arteries on the creature, and put pressure on them until it passed out and its jaws  _ finally _ unlocked.

Joker and Harley were both incapacitated. Batman shrugged off Matches’ coat—it didn’t look like he’d be needing it any more—and made makeshift bandages, first for the Joker, then for himself. He untied the old man and tied up the two criminals.

“Thanks,” the man wheezed, clearly parched. Batman got him a glass of water from the sink in Joker’s “dressing room,” which appeared to actually be the man’s living space.

“Call the police,” he suggested—still in Matches’ voice. No reason to change it. “An’ an ambulance.”

“Of course. How can I ever thank you?”

“Don’ worry about it,” Batman said. “Jus’ doin’ my civic duty, an’ all.”

He walked out of the antique shop. Matches’ car was miles away. Harley’s was likely stolen and should be left as evidence. He pulled out his burner phone.

“I’m gonna need a pickup,” he told Alfred, and gave him an address a few blocks away. It wouldn’t do for Matches to be taken in by the police, even as a witness. Even if this persona was done.

Although… Joker and Harley were unlikely to put out word that some random guy had taken them both out single-handedly. The antiques dealer hadn’t heard Matches’ name, and was unlikely to run in the same circles as him. Malone could always tell people that the Joker had it in for him for reasons that made sense only to the Joker. He’d have to be more careful, but it did make sense that Matches would have some enemies, since he’d supposedly been navigating the dangerous world of a small-time Gotham criminal for several years now.

Wearily, every step sending a bold of pain through his shoulder, Batman started walking, snapping a Matches “Whatchu lookin’ at?” at anyone who gave him a second glance.

Once he was home and his shoulder was tended to, he’d have to evaluate the situation at Arkham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence involving animals: Batman fights two hyenas. They end up dazed or unconscious but alive.
> 
> Abusive relationship: Joker/Harley. Nothing too detailed, just the overall air of fucked-up-ness that always surrounds that relationship.


	4. Robin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: mind control, Arkham

If B had come home or broken radio silence before the time when they usually left for patrol, Rick would have asked him for permission to go check out Arkham, but he didn’t. So Rick decided to go anyway.

“Are you certain this is wise, Master Rick?” Alfred asked while he suited up. “Master Bruce was rather insistent that you not—”

“Yeah, but he didn’t have the information I have now,” Rick interrupted. “I’m not even going on patrol. I’m just checking to make sure the Mad Hatter’s still in Arkham, that’s all.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“Then I’ll come home, and when B gets home we can talk about what to do next.”

Alfred sighed.

“Do be sure to have your Poison Ivy antitoxin with you, Master Rick. And if you see any sign of her, take it immediately. I cannot stress this enough.”

Rick had forgotten that Ivy got Alfred once. She’d dosed everyone at a party Bruce was hosting, and Alfred had been supervising in the kitchen. 

“I promise I will, Alfred. And I’ll turn around and come straight home, okay?” He finished suiting up. “And I’ll have Babs on comms the whole time. If something goes wrong, she’ll know exactly where to send B to rescue me when he gets back.”

“A stunning backup plan, sir,” Alfred said. “I can’t imagine why I was ever worried. Need I remind you that Master Bruce’s undercover work sometimes takes weeks?”

“He’s questioning a few contacts, not doing a job. He’ll be back tonight, and so will I.” He switched on his comms. “You there, O?”

“Always,” she said. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

“I’m going to Arkham,” he said, sliding into the driver’s seat of the Batmobile with a last wave for Alfred.

“And B?”

“He’s doing something undercover,” Rick said, speeding out into the night. Driving the Batmobile might not give him the same visceral wind-in-your-hair feeling as his motorcycle, but it was always such a  _ rush _ . “Probably won’t be on comms all night.”

“Oh really,” she said flirtatiously. “So we can… what’s cybering when it’s over a secure voice line?”

“Uh, phone sex?” Rick offered, flushing a little. “But that might be a little distracting. Actually, if I start trying to have phone sex with you, consider that an emergency, okay? Poison Ivy’s at large.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s at least as much of a mood killer as having Batman on the line,” she agreed. “I’ll be the epitome of professionalism. Promise.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible when we don’t actually pay you,” Rick joked. “Isn’t that what makes someone a professional?”

“Hey, yeah,” she said. “I should be pulling down a salary for this.”

“We can talk to B about it when he’s back from his field trip,” Rick said. It was a long drive to Arkham. It and the manor were both on the outskirts of Gotham, but on nearly opposite sides. It was an especially long drive when you made sure not to get within a block of any parks, but avoiding Ivy meant avoiding plants.

“Have you done undercover stuff?” Babs asked.

“A bit. B’s  _ really _ good at it. I’m not great,” he admitted. “And we don’t want to do much together, because if anybody gets suspicious… I mean, you can’t change your height much, and people have an idea of Batman and Robin’s relative heights.”

“I noticed,” she said with a laugh in her voice, and he remembered that was one of the ways she’d ID’d them in the first place.

“Anyway, yeah, I don’t do it nearly as much as B. He’s got a couple of different personas, but there’s this one...” he caught himself. “...whose name I’m  _ not _ going to say over comms, because that would be a breach of security. But he’s got himself set up as this, like, petty criminal with ambitions sort of guy? Asking if there’s anything big he can get in on, that sort of thing.”

“Cool,” Babs said. “Sounds sort of like what I do with my sockpuppets, except way harder.”

For a moment, Rick imagined Babs going undercover as some sort of puppeteer. Then he remembered what she meant.

“Oh, right, you’re friends with all the hackers,” he said.

“I dunno about  _ friends _ , but I have contacts,” she said. “Only one of whom has become a supervillain so far, as far as I know.”

“You’re tied with B, then,” Rick said thoughtlessly.

“...oh?”

“Oh, yeah, I probably shouldn’t say who over comms, but he was friends with one of the big names before they went bad.” Rick could still remember how devastated B had been when Harvey Dent started his new, uh,  _ career _ as Two-Face.

“I was never actually  _ friends _ with Riddler,” she said. “He was always kind of an asshole. And he didn’t actually know  _ me _ . Just the screen name of someone who’d come up with some clever scripts.”

“Please don’t tell me what that means in hacking,” Rick said. “I want to imagine that you mean you’re a playwright.”

“You do so know what that means,” she said, and laughed. Rick decided not to correct her.

Ahead of him, Arkham loomed. Rick knew a thing or two about looming—B had given him some pointers on how to do it despite not really having the stature for it—and that was a building that  _ loomed _ .

“What do you think, front door or sneak in?” he asked Babs.

“I didn’t know front door was an option.”

“Yeah, B and I turn people in here in person sometimes,” he said. “If they were already here and escaped, we can just bring them back. They already went through due process once. But I don’t have B with me, so…”

“I say sneak in,” Babs said. “There’ve been too many escapes lately, especially if it turns out Hatter’s out too. Something weird’s going on in there.”

“I’m not sure how we’d be able to tell against the background weirdness of the place,” Rick muttered, but he took her advice. He grappled up to a window on the top floor—the employee offices were up there, so the windows weren’t barred. Nobody was in the office, so he jimmied the window open and slid inside.

“It smells weird in here,” he told Babs quietly. “Not in an Ivy kind of way. More like… hot metal?”

“Weird.”

He crept down the hallway, sticking to the shadows. None of the offices had lights on or anything. There were security gates on the stairwell, of course, but he had the codes for them.

The second highest floor housed the low-security inmates—or should. He checked a few doors and found that they were unlocked, with empty cells behind them.

“Something’s definitely wrong here,” he told Babs.

The next floor down should hold the common areas—recreation room, cafeteria, gym, and so on. The security door was warm to the touch.

Rick slipped through anyway.

It was a factory. The tables from the cafeteria, plus beds and desks repurposed as tables, were lined up in rows. People sat at them, clearly doing intricate electronics work without pause, without a word. The doctors, the low-security inmates, they were all there. Some of them had burns on their hands. The only light came from the tools they used, sparks flying in the dark.

He closed the door again as quietly as he could, his heart pounding. Every person in that room had a computer chip affixed to their forehead. He couldn’t tell how they were staying on, but they were.

“I don’t know if he’s still here or not,” he whispered to Babs, once he had the door between himself and that eerie factory. “But the Mad Hatter has definitely taken over Arkham.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He almost said “I’m going to go the fuck home and let Batman take care of this.” Mind control gave him the screaming heebie jeebies, more than all the fear gas in the world.

“I’ve got to try and rescue them,” he said instead. He couldn’t leave them like this, not for the time it would take to drive to the manor and back. Not for another  _ minute _ .

He went back through the door, not trying to hide. No one looked up, not even when he walked up to the closest person—a security guard, from her clothes—and waved his hand in front of her eyes.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Robin. Need any help?”

No response. Well, okay then.

Pulling the chip off the woman’s head was nerve-wracking. Maybe it would kill her. Maybe he’d pull it off and there’d be a tendril of wires going into her skull, into her brain.

...or maybe it would pop right off, and then she’d blink at him, actually  _ look _ at him.

“We’ve got to get the rest of them,” she said. So apparently she knew what had been happening, at least. The two of them went to work, targeting security guards first. When they’d gotten about ten people free, something changed.

Everyone stopped working... which meant that there was no light at all. Robin pulled an emergency light out of his belt and flipped it on, illuminating the room.

All the chipped people were staring at him.

“Get them!” yelled one of the freed security guards, and Robin did, grabbing the nearest person and pulling off their chip just before the rest of them swarmed.

They didn’t fight very effectively, just sort of walking into him, waving their arms, getting in his way. It was creepy and it slowed down the process of getting all the chips off, but that was all. They weren’t even trying to get chips onto the free people, which had been Robin’s big worry.

Until he noticed that Two-Face—chipped, both sides of his face slack and expressionless—was trying to sneak around the edge of the room carrying a big box of the things.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Robin said, jumping at him. Two-Face actually put up a fight, although his expression never changed, so maybe whoever was running things—Mad Hatter, who else could it be?—was just paying more attention to that fight than to the rest of them. He threw around his superior bulk with a reckless disregard for his own safety, keeping Rick from getting close enough to get ahold of him. In the end, though, Robin managed to dart in and snag the chip off his forehead. He sidestepped quickly out of Two-Face’s reach, although he stayed ready to strike; there was no guarantee that Two-Face wouldn’t try to take the opportunity to run for it.

“Thank you,” Two-Face said, his voice Harvey Dent’s for the moment. He nodded to Robin and grabbed the nearest chipped person by the back of the collar, pulling the chip off and tossing the dazed inmate aside without  _ too _ much excessive force.

Rick shrugged. He wasn’t going to turn away help.

It wasn’t much longer before everyone was unchipped, although some people still weren’t accounted for. Security guards went to search the rest of the building while Jervis Tetch’s doctor spoke to Robin.

“I don’t know how he got the first chip made without us noticing,” said the exhausted doctor, “or how he made whatever he’s using to control them. But he got one on me and sent me home to make more. I think I broke apart all the electronics in my house for parts, and then I brought them back here and started sticking them on people.”

“It wasn’t you,” Rick said comfortingly. “Not really.”

“I know,” he said. “I just… thought we were making progress with Jervis. Apparently not.”

When the building had been searched from top to bottom and the inmates had been locked back into their rooms, Rick drove home, recounting the story to Babs all the way.

B was waiting for him when he got back to the Cave, standing in a way that suggested that he’d have his arms crossed disapprovingly if it wasn’t for the bandages he had wrapped around his shoulder, but as soon as he saw Rick’s face, the disapproval dropped off his.

“Rick, what happened?” he asked. “Are you alright? Was it Ivy?”

“Hatter took over Arkham,” Rick blurted out, and then he had to describe the whole thing  _ again _ when it felt like he’d just told Babs.

“It was terrible,” he finished. “They were like robots, B, or zombies. He was using them like puppets, and I’m pretty sure he’s stalking Allison—you remember Allison?”

“Of course,” B said gently. He put a comforting hand on Rick’s shoulder. “I wish you’d waited for me, but you did a good job.”

“I need to catch him,” Rick said. “I know you won’t let me help with Ivy—let me take Hatter. I think he’s going to make a move on Allison’s eighteenth birthday. That’s in a week and a half. I’ll have him in custody by then, I swear.”

“Understood,” B said, all business again. He dropped his hand from Rick’s shoulder. “Don’t hesitate to call me in if you need help, but that’s your case. Find the Mad Hatter and stop him. Protect your friend. I’ll take care of Ivy.”


	5. Batman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: kinky sex (see end notes for details), slightly compromised consent because Selina doesn't know Batman is Bruce

Leaving Hatter to Robin chafed, but Batman knew it was the right thing to do, both in terms of continuing Robin’s training and in terms of efficient division of resources. Ivy still had to be dealt with, after all. Hatter must have released her, Joker, and Harley as a distraction. Or that was why he’d released Joker and Harley, at least; it was possible that his mind control just didn’t work on Ivy, with her altered physiology, so he’d wanted her out of the way.

Batman spent a week focused on trying to track Ivy down (and letting his shoulder heal) before he finally gave in and went to see Selina.

Before, when she was expecting him, she’d be lying in bed wearing something small and silky. He’d know she expected him if the window was unlatched, even if she was asleep by the time he got there. Most of the time, patrol took too long or he ended up injured and didn’t have a chance to go to her apartment; other times, he got there and the window was latched. And of course there were the times when they ran into each other in costume. That was always fun, but usually ended with her escaping from him, not fucking him.

But when he went to her apartment, when the window was unlatched...well, she was still a criminal, but there was no crime in progress. She never kept stolen goods or any other kind of evidence in her apartment, at least not after she revealed her identity to him. They could have a temporary truce.

“Feel free to get started if I’m asleep,” she told him once. He took her at her word and discovered that nothing got her quite as wet as waking up blindfolded, with her hands tied to the bedposts and his hands on her. The bondage was a necessity—he couldn’t trust her, couldn’t let her see his face, couldn’t stop being her mysterious foe and lover and become just good old Bruce—but that certainly wasn’t all it was.

The last time he’d come to her before she’d turned herself in, she woke up while he was halfway through tying her face-down. She wiggled and moaned in anticipation, playfully pulling out of his reach until he started using his full strength, wordlessly reminding her that despite her agility and skill, when she was beneath him like this she was helpless. She was panting and gasping by the time he finished tying her down. He’d stripped, pulled on a condom, then picked her hips up off the bed, holding them in the air while he pounded into her, taking all control from her. A finger on her clit and she was screaming, writhing, pulsing hot and wet around him until he’d emptied himself so completely he felt hollow.

The fact that he had to put his cowl back on before he untied her always ruined his afterglow.

“Someday,” she said once she was unbound and smirking up at him, “I’m going to be the one tying you up.”

“Is that so.” He began putting on the rest of his uniform, not because he was eager to leave but because he was acutely aware of how ridiculous he looked naked except for the cowl. Not exactly the terrifying Dark Knight.

“You’re going to trust me eventually, darling. It’s inevitable.” She stretched, sleepy and content.

“Maybe if you give me a reason to,” he said.

“Maybe I will. I’m full of surprises.” He hadn’t known what she meant then, but the next day she’d showed up in Commissioner Gordon’s office to turn herself in. Apparently it had been quite a production.

Batman shook off the memories and lowered himself from the roof of her building to her window. It was unlatched, but he still hesitated. It had been over a year and a half. Maybe she’d forgotten their little signal. Maybe she thought he had.

No, she wouldn’t be careless enough to just leave her window unlatched if she wasn’t expecting him. Besides, when she’d talked to Bruce she’d sounded like she wanted to see Batman, if only to yell at him for never writing. If she was asleep, he’d just wake her up so they could talk. They probably wouldn’t be having sex, and he was okay with that. He had to be.

He entered the apartment.

Selina wasn’t asleep, or even in bed. She was sitting in a chair that was just out of view from outside the window, wearing her day clothes and reading a book. She’d gotten her hair cut and dyed since Bruce had seen her, into a black pixie cut that emphasized the angles of her face. They’d become more pronounced while she was in prison. As soon as Batman entered, she put the book down and looked at him expectantly.

“Hello, Selina,” he said.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.” He could hear an undercurrent of tension in her voice, although she tried to keep it light. “I’ve been out of prison for a week now.”

“I was busy. The Joker—”

“The city comes first, I know. I don’t need the details.” She sounded like she was talking about another woman, and one she was jealous of, as if Gotham was his wife and she was his mistress. The comparison was uncomfortably apt.

Batman crossed his arms. “I’m getting the impression that you’re mad at me.”

“Wow, maybe you really are the world’s greatest detective,” she said sarcastically.

“Are you planning to let me know why?”

“I’ve been in prison for twenty months because of you, and you never even called,” Selina said. All the bitterness she’d hidden in front of Bruce was pouring out now. “Two years without seeing my cat—that’s about a tenth of her lifespan, you know—and without a moment alone with my girlfriend. And now I’ve got an ankle tracker so that if anything in this city gets stolen—and what are the odds of a  _ robbery _ happening in  _ Gotham _ ?—my parole officer will be able to find out if I was anywhere nearby. Most of my old ‘friends’ are pretending they don’t know me; it’s a white-collar-crime-only sort of crowd. And it’s all your fault.”

“I know I encouraged you to turn yourself in, but I didn’t make you—”

Selina stood up and walked over to him, standing so close he almost thought he could feel her body heat through the Batsuit.

“I wasn’t doing any  _ harm _ ,” she hissed. “Nobody was losing money except for insurance companies, and fuck them. I didn’t even break into homes! No one had to sleep with one eye open because of me. Gotham was a fucking cesspit when I started. I wasn’t making it any worse, and it wasn’t like I could have made it better. And then along comes  _ Batman _ , making the city safer, fighting the system and actually winning. Inhuman, incorruptible, more mystery than man. Of course I had to try to seduce you. But you didn’t have to go along with it!”

“You’re mad at me for sleeping with you? I didn’t hear any complaints at the—”

“I made you weak,” she interrupted. “And I’m not even counting the times you had to stop your enemies from killing me; there will always be hostages. But word got around. Everyone knew. And all of a sudden the incorruptible Batman was just a man. Mob bosses bribed my fence to put them in touch with me, to ask if I could put in a good  _ word _ for them, or distract you, or maybe encourage you to not be in a particular place at a particular time.”

“You know that wouldn’t have worked,” Batman said.

“ _ You _ know that and  _ I  _ know that, but they didn’t know that.” She glared. “Even if I kept telling them no, even if I managed to avoid them, they weren’t thinking of you as some terrifying spirit of the night any more. They were getting less afraid of you, because of me. Because  _ you _ started fucking me.”

“So you turned yourself in.” He’d never really been able to piece together why she’d done that, until now. It had itched at him.

“I had to turn myself in. Now I’m a part of your mystique instead of taking away from it. That’s just how amazing Batman is; he got a master thief to go legit with the power of his dick.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. “You’re welcome.”

Batman was silent for a moment, unable to think of anything to say that she didn’t already know.

“Do you want me to leave?” he finally asked.

“No, you jackass, I don’t want you to leave. Not before you’ve fucked me,” she snapped, and kissed him viciously, all teeth and tongue. It caught him by surprise—she was always doing that, surprising him when barely anyone else ever could—but he recovered quickly, trying to fit two years’ worth of kisses into as many minutes.

Before he was anything like finished kissing her, she pushed him away, holding him at arm’s length.

“Leave the mask on if you have to,” she said, “but I’ve never gotten a chance to ride that cock, and I need it.” She began unbuttoning her top.

Batman was taking off his gauntlets and undoing his cape before his brain caught up with his hands. If he didn’t tie her up or blindfold her, if he took off the rest of his gear, she could pull his cowl, and the second mask he wore under it, off in a moment. Arousal and distraction would slow his response time; he’d be practically helpless at the moment of orgasm. It would be extremely difficult to discredit her if she learned the truth and tried to spread it.

But honestly, if she wanted to unmask him, she could have come up with easier ways than this. Ways that didn’t involve nearly two years in prison. And when she’d talked to him as Bruce, she sounded like she missed him.

He missed her. Not just the sex, but the rivalry, the battle of wits that actually wasn’t deadly. He missed recognizing her MO and realizing that no one was in danger... that he could actually relax a little. That he could actually enjoy being Batman.

“Catwoman,” he said, just to hear her name, and she glared at him.

“I’m not allowed to be Catwoman any more,” she spat. She was naked now, but she looked as self-assured and fearless as ever.

“You’ll always be Catwoman,” he said firmly.

His belt, cape, gloves, and boots were in a pile on the floor, but he was fumbling with the hidden clasps of his chestpiece, his fingers forgetting decade-old muscle memory. Suddenly Selina was there, helping him,  _ undressing _ him. No one had ever taken the suit off him before, not while he was conscious and uninjured. Too close, she was too close, but she’d been dangerously close since the first time he’d sought her out with no intention of arresting her. Maybe even before that; maybe the first time he’d seen her teasing smile it had been too late.

In some corner of his mind, Bruce whispered that he was being melodramatic, that sex was just sex, that Selina was great but was he sure that now was the best time to make a decision like this? Batman ignored him, but did not remove his cowl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinky sex CN specifics: male dom, bondage, being held down, waking up already in bondage (noted as having been explicitly agreed to ahead of time)


	6. Catwoman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More sex.

Selina had never gotten to see more than a glimpse of Batman naked before. The cowl looked a little silly, with everything else gone, but that didn’t keep him from being fucking hot. He was so  _ solid _ , like a wall of muscle and hair and cock and… justice, or whatever. It wasn’t the goal that mattered to her, it was the  _ drive _ , the way he threw himself into his goals wholeheartedly and unflinchingly. From the first time he’d chased her, she’d gotten off on that singleminded focus.

For the record, she was still mad at him. Furious, really. Not that she’d expected him to show up during visitor’s hours or anything like that, but he could have sent her a letter at the very least. He could have given her a phone number to call—nothing revealing, just a prepaid cell or something. She’d  _ hoped _ that he’d show up at her window, talk to her through the bars.

But no. Not a peep. So yeah, she was still mad, and fucking wasn’t going to fix that.

It would definitely help, though.

She dropped to her knees, grinning up at him slyly. All these nights she’d been waiting for him since she got out of prison she’d worn the same red lipstick that she used to wear with her Catwoman costume. She knew he’d remember the first time they did this—the rooftop chase in the rain, every step on the slick surfaces carrying a risk of death, the water making her catsuit clinging and translucent. He’d caught up to her exactly where she’d intended him to, a private little corner of the skyline, and demanded to know what was in the bag she’d carried. She opened it and showed him: gravel.

“I just wanted you to chase me,” she said, sidling within arm’s reach. He didn’t try to stop her.

“Why?” he’d asked, and oh, he could keep his face expressionless and his body hidden, but he couldn’t keep that particular note out of his voice. He wanted her, and it was delicious.

“Because I wanted you to catch me.” She pressed up against him, arms around his neck, face just inches from his, and he didn’t move, didn’t push her away. Victory was sweet.

“Why?” he asked again.

“Because I want to suck your cock,” she told him, and she slid down his body until she was kneeling in front of him, looking up at him expectantly—she knew he would fight reflexively if she tried to get into his armor. It was a submissive position, but submitting to him like this just meant proving to him that she had power over him. He could have picked her up, tied her up and slung her over his shoulder and brought her to the police.

He didn’t.

Selina was addicted to excitement, and as with most drugs, she kept needing bigger and bigger hits to get her fix. Crime did it for a while—having him chase her did it for a while—flirtatiously almost letting him catch her did it for a while. Watching his gauntleted hands shake while he undid the fastenings at the crotch of his suit was a whole new level. Sucking Batman’s cock on a rooftop in a thunderstorm… how could anything else ever compare? She pulled back when he started to shake, pumped him with her hands until his jizz mixed with the rain in her mouth and on her face. It tasted like jumping over a thousand-foot drop felt.

She’d kissed him, after—only fair to let him taste it too—and then ran off into the night. He didn’t follow.

And then she started figuring out where the new lines were, and pushing. Never while she was actually committing a crime, never while she was holding evidence or stolen goods, but it got easier and easier to get him to follow her into a semi-private nook and let her go down on him. They never took off their costumes beyond what was necessary to get his cock out. He fingered her through the thin layer of spandex she wore, or rather she ground down against one of his gauntleted hands while the other held both of hers above her head.

And then that wasn’t enough—she needed that cock in more than just her mouth—and she led him to her apartment, took off her costume and told him her name and practically dared him to use it against her. 

Once again, he didn’t.

And now another line had been crossed. She wasn’t tied down, wasn’t blindfolded—not that she hadn’t enjoyed both, but this was a novelty with him, and that was what she craved. When she decided she couldn’t wait any longer to ride him, she sucked him into her throat one last time, then pulled back and rolled a condom onto him. His face looked almost impassive, but she’d learned to read him. The slight twitch of his cheek muscles was like a shout from anyone else.

He let her push him down onto her bed. Running her hands across his chest and stomach, muscles and hair and scars, was new and delicious. She sank down onto his cock slowly, savoring every inch, and he actually bared his teeth at that, clearly struggling to let her set the pace instead of pounding up into her.

“So fucking good,” she gasped when he was fully seated inside her.

“Selina,” he gritted through clenched teeth, “Are you planning to move at some point?”

“Make me,” she said, and he grabbed her hips and ground her against himself. She felt weightless in those hands, helpless against all the strength in those arms, and that alone would have been nearly enough, but the knowledge that she’d driven him to this—that he was breaking his own rules by putting himself in a position where she could have unmasked him—that she was powerful and powerless at once— 

Selina screamed out an orgasm, and Batman thrust up into her, shaking, and no matter how many times it happened, making the grim stalker of the night come never stopped being a thrill.

When they’d both finished, she reached down to hold the condom while she slid off him, then collapsed bonelessly at his side. Once she’d caught her breath, she giggled.

“What?” he asked.

“You do look sort of silly in just the cowl. Not that I’m asking you to take it off,” she clarified before he could get his back up. “Just letting you know.”

“I know,” he said, a touch ruefully.

“I guess it would stop being exciting if you trusted me completely,” she said with a sigh. “It’d be nice if you trusted me a little more, though.”

He was silent for a moment.

“You do it all for the thrill,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “You never needed the money, just the excitement. The more exciting your life is, the less likely you’ll be to reoffend.”

Selina propped herself up on one elbow so she could glare at him.

“Don’t you  _ dare _ try to tell me that’s why you’re here,” she said. “Came to check up on me but couldn’t resist fucking me, fine, I’ll accept that. But if you’re trying to be some sort of… of  _ substitute _ …”

“Catwoman,” he said, and she fell silent. When he said she would always be Catwoman, did he mean she would always be a criminal to him? It had sounded like he meant something else, although she wasn’t sure what. “I came here tonight because I wanted to see you. I should be trying to track down Poison Ivy right now. I needed to see you.”

“Well, you saw me,” she pointed out. “Off into the night again?”

“You could help,” he said.

“Help with what?”

“You need something exciting to do. I need to find Poison Ivy.” His tone was extremely matter-of-fact for someone lying in bed wearing nothing but a bat mask. “Robin’s busy with his own case, and I don’t take him with me when Ivy’s out anyway. Tracking down a supervillain is exciting. You want me to trust you more.”

He stopped there, as if she was supposed to make something of that string of seemingly unrelated sentences. She took a moment to puzzle it out, then laughed bitterly.

“Nice try, but I know you know I have an ankle tracker,” she said. “I’m pretty sure participating in vigilante activity would violate my parole. You don’t get credit for offering when you knew I couldn’t accept.”

“I could take care of that,” he said. “Only when we’re together. It goes back on when I leave.”

“Wait, are you actually serious?”

He shrugged.

“It solves multiple problems at once,” he said. “Hastens Ivy’s capture, provides you with excitement, shows you that I trust you to have my back, lets me spend more time with you.”

“Lets you make sure I’m not going back to crime, you mean?” she asked.

“That too.”

It wasn’t  _ that _ unexpected, she supposed. They’d worked together before, when they’d been thrown together by circumstance or when people had tried to use her against him. They’d fought back-to-back before, and it had worked well. All the time they’d spent fighting one another had incidentally taught them how to match each other’s rhythms and support each other’s strengths.

And it  _ had _ been a thrill.

“Sure, why not,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Sounds fun. I’m not wearing the Robin costume, though.”

“Of course not. You’re Catwoman.”

“But everyone  _ knows _ that now,” she pointed out. “Getting my tracker off won’t matter if people see me out there while it’s in here.”

“So don’t let people see you.” He shifted onto his side slightly, leaning towards her. “I’m not just humoring you. I could use your help. I can’t promise everything will work out, but I’ll do my best to make sure it does.”

“And I have seen your best,” she said, stretching luxuriously to drive home the innuendo. “Yeah, okay, let’s do it. Batman and Catwoman, teaming up to fight evil. Sounds fun.”

He kissed her, then got out of bed and started getting dressed again.

“I’ll come by tomorrow evening,” he said. “Think about setting up an alibi, just in case.”

“You don’t need to give me advice on being a criminal, Batman,” she reminded him, and grinned when he scowled at her disapprovingly.


	7. Oracle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: Lots of discussion of exactly how creepy Jervis Tetch is.

Everybody was pretty confident that Poison Ivy and the Mad Hatter wouldn’t be working together. Apparently “all of humanity” was at the bottom of Ivy’s shit list, with “men” just above it and “men who are creeps” just above that. Jervis Tetch definitely fit that last category; Barbara had found reading his file deeply unpleasant.

So Ivy wasn’t likely to work with him, but she also wasn’t likely to try to stop him even if she knew what his plan was, which meant that Rick should only have to worry about one mind-controlling creep while he staked out Allison’s house. Night one was intended just to get an idea of what was going on there; Rick didn’t expect to get any kind of solid leads, and Barbara bowed to his expertise.

Allison’s parents didn’t have chips visible in the middle of their foreheads, of course; she probably would have mentioned that to them when she’d been telling them about everything weird that had been happening lately. Rick had reported catching glimpses of them under Mrs. Whittaker’s hair and Mr. Whittaker’s shirt collar.

“It’s hard to watch,” Rick confessed. “I wasn’t sure what the thing about clanging pots and pans was, but they’re literally just standing in the kitchen making noise. They’re not just trying to change her name and appearance; they’re intentionally sleep-depriving her and being unpleasant to her. I guess so that Tetch seems like a good alternative? I don’t know.”

“It’s a lot of effort to go to when he could just chip her,” Barbara said. “But I guess he tries not to do that with his actual, uh… targets?”

“Yeah, he seems to think that makes it okay,” Rick said bitterly. “And Allison’s the youngest person he’s gone after, but hey! He’s waiting for her eighteenth birthday. I bet he thinks that makes it okay, too.”

Barbara shuddered in disgust. She hadn’t mentioned to Rick or Bruce that the reason she’d started carrying so many self-defense items (although not the gun, that came later) hidden in her wheelchair was because she knew the statistics on abuse of the disabled, although she was pretty sure Bruce had guessed. Her dad had always thought it was more important to keep her informed than to keep her sheltered, since he knew he couldn’t be there with her every minute of every day.

The chips were tricky devices to figure out. She had Bruce’s notes on the previous version, but they were designed to enable a transfer from digital data to neurology, and the latter wasn’t something she knew anything about. No part of the chip was obviously a wireless receiver, so she had to eliminate all the pieces that weren’t, which was hard when she didn’t understand most of them.

But if she could isolate the signal, she could trace it back to the Mad Hatter and they could stop using Allison as  _ bait _ .

“This isn’t right,” she said as soon as she had that thought. “Allison should know what’s happening, and that she’s got someone looking out for her.”

“I agree, but what am I supposed to do, tell her at lunch tomorrow?” Rick asked.

“No—tell her as Robin,” she said. “R, we’re using her as  _ bait _ for a  _ rapist _ . She needs to know.”

“...yeah, okay,” he said. “Tomorrow evening, alright?”

“Thank you,” Barbara said. “She has a right to know.”

So the next evening, when Allison had said goodbye to her friends and was walking home in time for her (ridiculously early) curfew, Rick waited until she was alone and then dropped to the sidewalk next to her.

“Hi,” he said. His voice was doubled in Barbara’s headphones, coming in once through his communicator and once through the listening device she’d gotten him to plant on the wall there earlier, along with a secure webcam. She was the one who’d insisted on this, and she wanted to see how it played out.

Allison jumped, and Rick put his hands half-out in front of him, an  _ I’m unarmed, you’re okay _ gesture that Barbara assumed Bruce had taught him.

“Woah. Robin?” Allison looked around nervously. “Is Batman here? Is there something bad going on?”

“Batman’s always around, but I’m more fun to talk to, trust me,” Rick said. Barbara snorted a laugh. “And yeah, something bad’s going on, but I think you knew that.”

Allison burst into tears.

“S-sorry,” she said, trying to hold them back and wiping at her eyes. “My parents, and some people at school, and— what’s wrong with them? What’s happening?”

“Hey, hey,” Robin said in a gentle voice. He was holding himself still, not moving towards her or away from her. Barbara knew he was probably itching to give her a comforting hug, but knew that sudden physical contact from a stranger in a mask wasn’t going to help. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“Watch out,” Barbara warned him. “You’re getting too close to your usual voice.”

“Is it me?” Allison asked, looking at him beseechingly. “Am I doing it somehow? Please, I’ll stop if you just tell me how.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said more firmly, back in what Barbara had teasingly referred to as his ‘heroic’ register. It sounded less like a joke now. “You haven’t done anything wrong, and if they try to imply otherwise, don’t listen. They’re being controlled by the Mad Hatter.”

“Oh.” Allison was quiet for a moment, apparently absorbing this information. She hugged her arms to herself.

“R, you have a spare communicator on you, right? One of the stealth ones,” Barbara said quietly. “She should be able to call for help if there’s an emergency.”

He tapped a finger against his microphone to show that he’d heard.

“Can you save them?” Allison asked shakily.

“We can,” Robin said. “We can do it right away, if you give us a list of everyone you’ve noticed acting strangely. But if we do that, he’ll try something else. If we leave things as they are, just for a little while longer—”

“Then you can catch him,” Allison finished. She hugged herself tighter.

“We’ll catch him either way,” Robin assured her. “But we’ll be able to catch him faster, and with less risk, if he doesn’t realize that we know he’s… fixated on you.”

“Ugh,” Allison said with a grimace. “He’s waiting for my birthday, isn’t he? Creepy.”

“Yeah. We’d like it if… I can give you a communicator, so that you can call for help if you need it. But if you can hold out for a little longer, he’s going to walk right into our trap. We can put him back where he belongs.”

“Is it hurting my parents?” she asked. “And my friends, and Mr. Sanders? Because you shouldn’t just leave them under his control if it’s hurting them.”

“It’s not fun for them,” Robin said. “He might not be giving them enough time to take care of themselves, so they’ll probably be tired and hungry whenever we do get them out from under his control. I don’t want to lie to you; it’s traumatic, being controlled like that. But it’s not going to fry their brains or anything.”

“Okay,” Allison said. She sighed, and dropped her arms back to her sides. “Okay. I’ll help. Give me the communicator.”

Barbara scrambled to set up one of her voice disguisers—not one that would make her sound inhuman, but one that would make her sound like an adult woman who definitely wasn’t the girl Allison had lunch with the day before.

“So, when you need to talk to us, you activate it like this,” Rick said, showing her how it worked.

“Like this?” Allison asked, and her voice doubled like Rick’s.

“Just like that,” Barbara said. Batman might not like her telling people that there was a third person working with him and Robin, but as far as she was concerned, revealing her own existence was her call. “Hi, Allison. My name’s Oracle. I work with Batman and Robin.”

“Oh! I didn’t know they had another… um, hi. I guess you know who I am,” Allison said. She turned away from Rick slightly, to focus on the conversation, and Rick grappled away once she wasn’t looking at him. A little rude, but to be fair, they didn’t want anyone under Hatter’s control to spot Allison with Robin.

“I do.” Barbara set up a separate channel that would just be her and Allison; Allison didn’t need to hear everything Bruce and Rick said to each other, but Babs stayed on comms all day anyway, just in case. “Batman and Robin can’t always be on comms, and they can’t always respond when they are, but I’m on just about 24/7.” She could sleep with an earpiece in and the volume turned up enough to wake her up if anyone called. Allison deserved to know someone would always be there.

“Really? Are you, like, a robot?” Allison asked skeptically. She sounded much less afraid than she had before.

“No, I’m not a robot,” she said. “But you can call me any time if you need help, okay? And if it gets too much and you need to talk… well, be absolutely sure that no one else can hear you, but you can give me a call. Let me know that it’s not an emergency, and it might take me a little while to respond, but I will. Okay?”

“Okay,” Allison said. “Thanks, Oracle.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Barbara said honestly. “You’re helping us take down a major criminal, and you just got kind of thrown into it. We’ll offer you all the support we can, okay? And Robin’s going to be keeping an eye on you in the evenings and at night, although you probably won’t see him doing it.”

“Uh, okay.” Allison turned around and visibly startled when she noticed that Robin was gone. “He’s not going to like… watch me change or anything, is he?” she asked.

“No, no. Keeping an eye on you doesn’t mean constantly staring,” Barbara assured her. “Robin’s a gentleman. Promise.”

“O, you there?” Rick asked on the other channel. She switched to talk to him.

“Yeah, hang on,” she said. “I’m just letting Allison know that she can call for help, and that you’ll be keeping an eye on her, but not watching her change.”

“Woah, your voice sounds super weird,” he said.

“Yeah, I don’t want her to recognize me. I should probably use this all the time, actually. Anyway, shush,” she said. “I’m still talking to her.”

“Oracle, do you… do you really think I can do this?” Allison asked. She was leaning back against the wall now, out of the webcam’s view. “I’m not like you or Batman or Robin. I’m just a teenage girl. I’m just normal.”

“All of us were normal until we decided not to be,” Barbara told her. “Even Batman. You can do this.”

“How do you know?”

“Because teenage girls are tougher than anyone thinks,” Barbara said. Mindful of her disguised voice, she added, “I started working with Batman and Robin when I was a teenager. You can do it.”

“And I can call you any time I need you?” Allison repeated.

“Be careful no one overhears you, unless it’s an emergency,” Barbara repeated. “But yeah, you can. You can even turn on the line and not say anything, if you just want me to be able to hear what’s going on around you. I’m right here in your ear, whenever you need.”

“Thank you,” Allison said. Her voice was much less shaky now. “I guess I should head home now.” She stepped away from the wall, but seemed to be taking a moment to steel herself before walking back to her house.

“It’s going to be hard,” Barbara told her. “It’s going to feel impossible, sometimes. Walking home and acting like you don’t know what you know about your parents probably feels impossible. But you’re going to do it anyway, and then you’ll know that you can do impossible things.”

“If you say so,” Allison said, and started walking. “Thanks, Oracle. Um… do I say ‘over and out’ when I hang up or something?”

“You can say ‘Allison out’ if you want,” Barbara said, chuckling a little. “Or you can just say ‘goodbye.’”

“Right,” Allison said, and she actually laughed. It was small and shaky, but it sounded real to Barbara. “I think I have a better chance at this if I feel like I’m in a spy movie, so Allison out.”

Allison closed the channel, walking home with her head up and her shoulders back, and Barbara reopened her connection to Rick.

“She’s going to be okay,” she told him. “I guess you’ve always had good taste in girlfriends.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s improved a lot recently,” he said. “I’m going to tail her back to her place and make sure her parents don’t notice anything.”

“Sounds good,” Barbara said. “She’s got this, though. She’s tougher than you think.”


	8. Batman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: mentions of mind control and sex pollen

Bruce didn’t think making major decisions just prior to or just following sex was a good idea, but Batman was in charge of security, and he wanted Catwoman’s help tracking down Ivy. The fact that he’d come to that decision just after having sex with her didn’t make it a bad one.

There were definite advantages to the plan. She was a skilled combatant, and clever; her girlfriend Maven was asleep in her bedroom, ready to provide an alibi if Catwoman was spotted out on the town. Obviously, Selina had been out of the game for a while, but she still had contacts that Matches didn’t, as she explained while he worked on her ankle tracker the night after they’d agreed to work together.

“It’s not that Ivy and I ever worked together or anything,” she explained. “She loves plants, I love animals; it never could have worked out in the long run.”

“You slept with her,” Batman concluded.

“I slept with her,” Selina agreed without a hint of regret. “Just the once, though, and she  _ did _ try to kill me once or twice after that, so I don’t think I owe her any loyalty at this point.”

“She tried to kill you?”

“Well, she tried to mind control me, I assume as bait for you,” Selina said. “And there’ve been a couple of times she tried to kill everyone in Gotham, right? I live here. She didn’t try to warn me or anything.” She didn’t sound particularly bitter. Presumably she’d known what she was getting into when she had sex with a supervillain.

“Right.” Ivy had used two forms of mind-altering substance: a chemical that caused the affected to become slavishly devoted to her when it was applied to their skin and a pollen that lowered inhibitions and acted as a potent aphrodisiac when inhaled. “I can give you pills that will counteract the effects of her pollen, but I haven’t been able to put together anything that works against her lipstick. Try to avoid exposure.”

“I would’ve thought the lipstick would be the priority,” Selina said, arching an eyebrow.

“Harder to get samples,” Batman explained. “I’ve examined her lipstick tubes, but it seems to be inert until it mixes with her unusual body chemistry.”

“I’ll try to avoid kissing her, then,” she said. “Are you almost finished?”

“Almost.” It would have been easy to simply deactivate the tracker, but that would have been noticeable. To leave it active, but not attached to her ankle, while ensuring that it could be reassembled well enough that no tampering could be detected, was a challenge.

Kneeling in front of her with her toned leg filling his field of vision didn’t make it any easier.

“There,” he said finally. The disassembled tracker came away in his hand, but could be reassembled quickly and seamlessly.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Selina said fondly. “That was definitely a crime.”

“There are lines I don’t cross,” he said. “This isn’t one of them.”

“I hope this still fits,” she said, picking up her costume. “I haven’t been able to try it on with that damn thing on my leg.”

He looked away while she changed. This wasn’t a time for distractions.

“How’s it look?” she asked, and he looked back at her.

“Unarmored,” he said with a frown. “I could—”

“Nope,” she said. “I need to be fast and flexible. Armor would slow me down.”

“Not with the right training.”

“Did Robin leave or something?” she asked, a note of warning in her voice. “Are you trying to make me your new sidekick? Because I’m not your new sidekick.”

“If we’re going to be allies, I can help you get better gear and training. And no, Robin didn’t leave.” He pulled a spare communicator out of his belt, one that should only connect her and him. Oracle didn’t need to be distracted from working with Robin, and Selina didn’t need to know about Oracle. “Here, this will let us keep in touch if we’re separated.”

“I assume it has a tracking device in it,” she said as she tucked it under her cowl.

It didn’t. He had a tracker ready to stick to the back of her belt at the earliest opportunity.

“Of course,” he said. “Mine does too. I don’t like to lose my gear.”

“Mm-hm,” she said, clearly skeptical. “Well, if Ivy has anyone working for her who isn’t being mind-controlled, and if they’re not busy right now, I know where they’re likely to be hanging out.”

“How far?”

“It’s a little ways outside the city. A few miles from here.” She grinned. “Does that mean I get to ride in the Batmobile?”

“That seems like the most practical thing to do,” he said. He wondered if she wanted to have sex in the Batmobile. It wouldn’t be easy, logistically; there wasn’t a lot of extra room. But maybe if he sat in the passenger seat and she rode him…

Later.

“Lead on, then,” she said, still grinning eagerly. She’d put that red lipstick she’d always worn with her costume on. Not optimal for stealth, but he knew that she knew to take that into account; he’d seen her suck in her lips when she was trying to hide before. Optimal for reminding him of how good her mouth felt on him.

He left the way he came, riding a grapple line to the ground, but this time he had her arms around his neck, his arm around her supporting her weight. Not that she couldn’t get to the ground on her own, but this was more efficient. The fact that it was also more enjoyable was irrelevant.

“No sex in the Batmobile,” he decided when they reached the ground. “Robin would notice.”

“Oh, fine,” she said, letting go of him only reluctantly. Her tone clearly indicated that she’d been thinking about it too. He led her into the alley where he’d left the Batmobile, and she ran a hand over its hood. “What about  _ on _ the Batmobile?”

“Work first, play later,” he said.

“That wasn’t a no.” She cocked an eyebrow.

“If we can find the privacy,” he said. “But later.”

She gave him directions to the bar that Ivy’s employees apparently favored, and he drove. Having her in the passenger’s seat felt like having a thunderstorm beside him, an electric crackle in the air.

“That’s a lot of unlabeled buttons,” she observed, looking at the dashboard.

“Don’t—”

“I’m not going to touch them,” she assured him. “I just always wondered what this thing looked like on the inside. It’s living up to expectations, I promise.”

That shouldn’t have been as gratifying as it was.

“Tell me about the bar,” he said, and she described the layout, the entrances and exits, the volume of the music and the lighting, the usual clientele… everything he wanted to know.

“And that’s all recent information,” she finished. “I popped by the other night, out of costume. They haven’t changed anything.”

“That was a risk.”

“I dressed down,” she assured him. “Plus colored contacts and the new haircut. I doubt anyone recognized me as Selina Kyle or as Catwoman.”

He’d have considerably more confidence in her disguise skills if he’d trained her himself. If they were going to keep working together…

That was a decision that should wait.

“So what’s the deal with Robin, anyway?” she asked when they’d finished their tactical discussion. The bar was still a few minutes away. “Is he your son?”

Batman hesitated. Selina knew Bruce had an adopted son; she even knew Rick. Telling her that Batman had adopted too might be the clue that let her piece it together.

“Are you still with his mom? Are we having a  _ sordid affair _ ?” Selina asked. She sounded thrilled.

“I’m single. It’s a torrid affair at most,” he said seriously—it was important to be able to categorize these things, when measuring how vulnerable someone was to blackmail, for instance—and she laughed. “I’m his mentor. It’s comparable to a parent-child relationship.”

“Hence why you don’t want to risk leaving cum stains in the seat where he usually sits,” she said. He shouldn’t have found her intentional crassness appealing. “I get it. I mean, I don’t  _ get _ it, I’ve never been a parent or a mentor or anything, but I get it enough not to try to seduce you into changing your mind. Promise.”

“I think on the hood is a reasonable compromise,” he said. “But  _ later _ . We’re almost there.”

He parked the Batmobile a little way away from the bar itself, in a side street where it shouldn’t get too much attention.

“I’ll go in alone,” Selina said, unbuckling. “Is there a way to set this earbud to transmit what’s going on around me, or would you like to have me wear a wire too?”

“I can change it to the ambient noise setting,” he said. “You’re going to casually walk into a bar in costume?”

“They won’t mind, here,” she said, and darted in to kiss him on the cheek before getting out of the car. He had to wipe the lipstick smudge off his cheek in the rearview mirror.

He gave her a moment, then went around the long way, where he’d be poised to come crashing in through a window if she found trouble.

“Catwoman?” he heard a female voice ask over comms. “I heard you got out, but I wasn’t expecting to see you here. I thought you went straight.”

“Nah, I’m definitely saying bi,” Selina said with a touch of flirtation. It was odd, hearing her repeat a joke she’d made to Bruce while she knew Batman was listening. “How’ve you been, Poppy?”

“Can’t complain,” Poppy said. Ivy’s devotees tended to take flower names, and “Poppy” was an unusual enough name that it was unlikely to be a coincidence, but it was still possible. “Can’t complain at all. How was prison?”

“Boring,” Selina said fervently. “And can you believe, I haven’t seen the big bad B-man since I turned myself in? Don’t know what I was thinking, trusting a man’s promises. He got what he wanted and split.” He was fairly certain that not all of the bitterness in her voice was feigned. He really should have written her a letter or something.

“Men,” Poppy said in disgust. “Listen, I’d have to clear it, but I might be able to get you in on a plan to get back at them…”

“Even  _ him _ ?”

“Especially him,” Poppy said with relish. “You know what, let me just go make a quick phone call and I’ll see if I can tell you more.”

“I’ll be here,” Selina said. There were a few wordless sounds: the scrape of a chair, footsteps.

“You get that?” Selina asked quietly.

“I got it.” A woman—presumably Poppy—walked out the back and pulled out a cell phone. “I have eyes on her.”

“If this doesn’t pan out, she smelled swampy,” Selina reported. “I assume that’s from where she’s been staying and not just her personal preference.”

“Understood.” There were only so many swampy areas around Gotham. That alone could narrow down the search considerably. “Radio silence.”

He stuck a listening device to a batarang and threw it so that it would stick just above where Poppy was talking on the phone. It embedded itself in a wooden utility pole with a quiet “thunk,” easily hidden by the music coming from inside the bar. Poppy didn’t look up.

“...I mean, she certainly  _ sounded _ mad at him,” she was saying. He and Selina were both able to hear her. “And I’m pretty sure she’s violating her parole right now, which he probably wouldn’t…”

The voice on the other side of the call, unfortunately, was inaudible.

“Of course, Ivy.” Poppy’s voice was respectful; Poison Ivy commanded a cultlike devotion among her followers. Not by using the lipstick—that removed most of their initiative and didn’t last for long, fortunately—but repeated exposure to the pollen could be addictive. “I’ll bring her to you. Goodbye.”

She went back into the bar.

“So?” Selina asked after a moment.

“Ivy’s willing to give you a chance,” Poppy said. “But she doesn’t want me to explain the plan in public. You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“Took a taxi,” Selina said, just the barest hint of laughter in her voice.

“Good. Come on, I’ll drive.”

Everything fell into place perfectly after that. He retrieved the batarang and tailed Poppy and Catwoman to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Reserve, listening to Poppy enthusiastically outline Ivy’s current plan—chemicals in the water supply that would react with testosterone to turn men (and anyone else with high testosterone levels; Ivy’s misandry lacked nuance) into shambling zombies.

“Like they aren’t already?” Selina asked, and the two laughed.

Ivy and a small band of followers had taken over a disused building in the wildlife refuge.

“Catwoman, darling, I’m  _ so _ sorry about what that awful man put you through,” Ivy said. “I hope there aren’t any hard feelings between us?”

“Of course not,” Selina said, and then punched her in the face.

Ivy had plenty of tricks up her sleeve, but she wasn’t a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, and few of her followers were either. By the time Batman entered the building, Selina had put Ivy in a sleeper hold and lowered her to the ground. Her ability to control plants didn’t do her any good while she was unconscious. The followers might have been able to overpower Catwoman, but against Catwoman and Batman they were hopelessly outmatched. The whole thing was over in minutes, the criminals bound—Ivy in metal chains, which inhibited her powers—and the police alerted.

“That was amazing!” Selina said gleefully while they drove back to her apartment. “Oh, I wish you’d seen the look on her face. She was so surprised!”

“You did a good job,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” she purred. “Oh, and have you noticed what time it is?”

“2:47?”

“It’s  _ later _ ,” she said with relish. “You can find somewhere to park this car where we won’t be spotted, can’t you?”

There was never a 100% guarantee that no one was looking. But really, there was never a guarantee of anything. Batman drove into a blind alley overlooked by empty office buildings.

The hood of the Batmobile was suboptimal for sex, not having been designed for that purpose. Neither of them cared.


	9. Robin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: more Mad Hatter creepiness

“How’s the Hatter case going?” B asked when both of them got home after the third night that Rick spent keeping an eye on Allison. It was a lot more comfortable to do now that she knew he was there. Every once in a while he’d let her catch a glimpse of him, and she’d smile. He knew Babs was talking to her, too, which seemed to be helping her a lot.

“Just a stakeout so far,” he said, hanging up his mask and belt. “I think it’s most likely that he’ll show up at midnight on Thursday; Allison’s birthday is Friday. So, you know, the minute she turns 18.” He made a face. Hatter was so gross.

“You should have a contingency plan in case he brings support,” B said. Rick had basically memorized his post-mission routine: first cape, then gauntlets, then cowl, then armor. He didn’t take his backup mask off until he was down to his underlayer. “I told you it’s your case, but I can be there to back you up if you want.”

“What about Ivy?” Rick pulled his gloves off and washed his hands. They got really gross with sweat during Gotham summers.

“Got her tonight,” B said. There was something odd about his voice.

“Really? That’s awesome! Fast, too. I thought you didn’t even have any leads.”

“I had help.” The odd tone was even stronger now. Was that friction burn on his chin, or a bite mark?

“From…?” Rick finished stowing his gear and turned to face B, crossing his arms.

“Catwoman.”

“Cat—oh my  _ god _ , B. You know you can’t trust her!” Rick threw up his hands. “I like Selina too, but if she decides it’ll be more fun to betray you than to back you up—”

“I’m not trusting her. She still doesn’t know who I am.” 

“Yeah? For how much longer?” Rick waited, but no answer was forthcoming. “I can’t believe you. Seriously. She’s going to get you killed.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? Because I think what you’re doing is thinking with your  _ dick _ and not your brain!” Rick stormed out of the Cave, calling behind him, “Babs will call you if I need backup. But right now, I don’t think I  _ want _ it. Not from you.”

Batman watched him go, impassive.

“I can’t believe he’s fucking her again,” Rick grumbled over comms to Babs the next night, back in the tree outside Allison’s house. “It’s such an obviously, phenomenally bad idea.”

“She did turn herself in,” Babs pointed out. “Maybe she’s changed?”

“I really doubt it. It’s not like she’s  _ sorry _ . Even while she was confessing she was—hang on, I see something.”

Rick frowned. A car had just pulled into the Whittakers’ driveway. Allison’s birthday was still a day away; was Hatter making his move early?

No, the woman who stepped out of the car definitely wasn’t Jervis Tetch. But she  _ was _ carrying a blue dress, a black hair ribbon, white petticoats, white stockings, black patent leather shoes with buckles, and a white apron.

“That’s why her parents haven’t been making noise tonight,” Rick realized. “Oh my god, this lady’s going to sneak into her room or something and leave her this weird Alice in Wonderland cosplay.”

“This whole case is  _ so creepy, _ ” Babs groused. “Can you get a tracker on the car? Maybe we can just find out where Hatter’s based and end this.”

“Way ahead of you,” Rick said, already getting the launcher out of his belt. The presumably mind-controlled woman took her time at Allison’s bedside arranging the clothes perfectly; Allison was deeply asleep. Rick hoped it was just because she’d been so sleep-deprived and not because her parents had slipped something into her dinner. Anyway, he had plenty of time to line up the shot and get the tracker stuck unobtrusively to the bottom of the car.

“Tracker’s online,” Babs said. “I’m going to wake Allison up before her alarm and let her know that you were watching and she was safe. I’d be  _ seriously _ freaked out if something like that showed up in my room.”

“Good idea,” Rick said. “Where’s the car heading?”

“Someplace in the suburbs, it looks like. She’s not headed towards the city. Looks like… oh, jeez. She stopped at a Best Buy. It’s been closed for hours. Either she’s there to rob the place or Hatter’s taken it over.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Rick said. “He’s got to be getting parts from somewhere.”

Internally, he wrestled with himself. He wanted to stay; he’d never forgive himself if he left and something else happened to Allison, like if her parents tried to change her clothes while she was sleeping or something. But someone needed to get to that Best Buy ASAP. B was out patrolling. Rick could ask for help, but… the whole Catwoman thing…

He sighed. Helping people had to come first.

“Patch me through to B, would you?” he asked.

“On it.”

“Hey, B. How’s patrol?” he asked.

“Uneventful. Everything okay on your end?”

“We’ve got what might be a lead on Hatter’s location, but I don’t think I should leave my stakeout,” he admitted.

“Send me the coordinates.”

“I’m still mad at you,” Rick said, just to keep it established. “You know why.”

“Understood.”

Babs sent B the location, and Rick stayed put. He knew it was the right thing to do, even if it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as slamming a fist into that bastard’s face. The priority had to be the people they were protecting.

“There’s definitely another factory set up here, like the one you reported at Arkham,” Batman reported. “Employees, presumably customers. I don’t see Tetch, but I can’t see into the manager’s office. He could be there.”

“If he’s there, they’ll probably fight better than the ones at Arkham, right?” Rick said.

“I’ll hit the place with an EMP,” B said. “That should free the people here, at least. If Hatter’s here, it should also free the people under his control who aren’t here.”

“Okay, do it,” Rick said, quietly pleased that B was still letting him run things. “I’ll let you know if Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker react at all. They’re in bed right now, but I assume getting abruptly un-mind controlled might wake them up.”

“Seems plausible,” B said. “It’ll take a little while to set it up and then get clear of the radius. I’ll let you know when I trigger it.”

“Got it,” Rick said.

It was nearly twenty minutes before B let him know he was triggering it. As soon as he did, Allison’s parents sat straight up in bed and  _ screamed. _

“Something’s definitely happening here!” Rick said, and rushed for Allison’s window. She’d started leaving it unlocked in case he needed to come in. “I’m going in.”

“Acknowledged,” B said. “I see Hatter now—he was in the manager’s office. I’ll get him.”

“Go for it,” Rick said, and he didn’t need to come in the window after all, because Allison’s dad was tearing the dress from where it had been hanging on her closet door and throwing it out of the room, and Allison’s mom was hugging her and crying.

“It’s okay, mom,” Allison said, once she woke up enough to figure out what was happening. “I’m okay. I know it wasn’t you. It’s okay.”

Rick smiled.

“Got him,” B said.

“Code word?” Rick asked. It was standard procedure, when one of them had been up against a mind controller.

“Rutabaga,” B said seriously, and Rick snickered.

“Okay, cool. You going to deliver him back to Arkham?”

“Seems easiest.”

“I love you too, mom. Shh, it’s okay. I knew what was going on,” Allison said. “Robin told me what was happening. He’s been keeping me safe. He and Batman must’ve taken down the Mad Hatter.”

It still wasn’t  _ quite _ as satisfying as kicking the crap out of Jervis Tetch would’ve been, but it was pretty good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end of the very potentially triggering issue! I'll post summaries in Supplemental Materials so that people can skip chapters or whole issues if they want.


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